Ridership on the UK-based Tyne and Wear Metro has hit a six-year high, with the Department for Transport confirming an extra two million journeys on the Tyne Wear Metro for 2015/16.
According to Katie Dickinson of the Chronicle Live, the above-mentioned increase represents a 5.7% jump from the previous year, with the number of passengers exceeding approximately 40 million. In addition, the average Metro carriage was occupied by 62 people in 2015-16, up from 58 the year before.
“Nexus, which owns and manages Metro, put the increase down to keeping fares affordable, the popularity of Pop pay as you go and other smart cards, and high passenger numbers during the 2015 Rugby World Cup, when an additional 300,000 people travelled in just two weeks,” Dickinson explained. “The growth has also led to an increase of £2.3m in revenue, meaning the network generated a total of £50.2m, compared to £47.9m the year before. This is twice as much revenue as it achieved as recently as 2001-02, when the figure was £25m.”
As Russell McCullagh, Managing Director of Rambus’ Ecebs notes, Nexus is a customer of Ecebs’ Paragon suite of smart ticketing products. This includes HOPS, Card Management System and Remote Ticket Download (Cloud-based ticketing software).
“It’s great to see increased passenger uptake and usage of Pop smart cards,” McCullagh told Rambus Press. “Ecebs Paragon ticketing software plays a key roll in supporting the Pop smartcard scheme and we are very proud of its continued success.”
It should be noted that the Tyne and Wear Metro’s smartcard ticketing system was voted the best in Europe, clinching the Best Smart Ticketing Service category at the 2015 Transport Ticketing Awards in London. Well over 100,000 Metro passengers currently use smart products to make their journeys, including the Pop card and concessionary smart cards for older and disabled individuals.
In addition, the Metro also recently introduced 225 new ticket machines, along with smart gates and validators across 60 stations as part of the rollout of smart travel. Passengers can also buy travel at about 460 Payzone shops across North East England.
Interested in learning more about how Rambus is providing secure technology products for smart transport? You can check out our article archive on the subject here.
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